I love this time of the year. I often feel like the child I once was, wanting to run like the wind, throwing my arms around each day. This season is filled to the very brim with all things sensual - crisp leaves, crunchy apples, fragrant acorn squash baking in the oven, and the occasional whiff of smoke from someone's fireplace. My birthday just around the corner. Everything this season offers conjures up so many memories.
This season also delivers a large dose of heartache. Forty-five years ago I was expecting my first child. I was nineteen years old, soon to be twenty. My beautiful, perfect baby was born on October 18th. Although incredibly challenging at times, our lives seemed so promising. Full of determination, commitment, dedication, hope and some sacrifice, I was betting all I had on a very bright future for my new family and me.
A Valuable History Lesson
October arrives in six days.As many know, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It came about as a result of the first Day of Unity held in October 1981 and was the brain-child of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV). The purpose of this day was to bring together battered women's advocates who were working diligently to stop the violence.
Eventually the Day of Unity became a week-long event. Many activities were held at the local, state and national levels to raise awareness and to recognize the suffering of many. Some of these activities included remembering, honoring and mourning those individuals, the overwhelming majority women, murdered as a result of domestic violence. There were celebrations held for survivors and events to connect with individuals and groups dedicated to ending this scourge.
In October 1987, the first Domestic Violence Awareness Month was established. That same year, the first national toll-free hotline was created. Two years later, the U.S. Congress passed the Domestic Violence Awareness Month Commemorative Legislation.
In October, 1994 the NCADV and Ms. Magazine partnered to create a memorial to those who had been murdered that year as a deadly result of Domestic Violence. And each year, this project, the "Remember My Name" tribute continues to publish a poster listing the dead.
The Day of Unity in now celebrated on the first Monday in October. This year this day of remembrance falls on October 1st. On that day individuals and groups are encouraged to create, initiate and incorporate ways to help bring awareness and necessary change for those individuals and their children who live under the ongoing and terrorizing threat of violence in their lives and in their homes.
Then And Now: The Bitter To Sweet
Fourteen months after the birth of my first child, I delivered a second beautiful, healthy baby. Ten days after the child's birth, the violence in my home began. That first beating was horrific. I knew nothing about domestic violence. I knew no one who had ever been beaten by a loved one. I remained mute through it all, offering no resistance. You see, my newborn was asleep just a few feet away and I was terrified she would awaken and be harmed or even killed. If I had been killed on that first night, I would have had no, what is often called, "defense wounds". And so the cycle began and would continue for a very long time.
How very ironic, it now seems, that my abusive husband of twenty years (now former husband) left us in 1987, the very year that the Domestic Violence Awareness Month was created.
Looking back, I find it equally remarkable that in 1994, when the "Remember My Name" memorial was established, I married a remarkably kind, caring, loving and decent man who helped finish raising my children. Together we have established a loving marriage and partnership, have a terrific blended family of seven children and are the grandparents of eight beloved grandchildren.
With the many blessings I have received, I give thanks for the immeasurable freedom I have to live without fear, humiliation and degradation. I am grateful that my children are no longer subjected to an extremely unhealthy and dysfunctional life. I am ever aware of my second chance at being the mother, wife, sibling, friend and just being the person I had always wanted to be. Today I am my true self . . . my authentic self.
I am one of the very lucky ones. This I know. In my gratitude, I must remember those who are still living in the throes of this insidious, vicious and soul-sucking national and global nightmare that is Domestic Violence. And with that, I am called to take action.
I do not know to whom I should give credit for changing a well known saying, but whoever you are, I thank you. The saying you recreated very accurately describes the pain I felt throughout those dark years of living with domestic violence.
"Sticks and stones will break my bones
and
Words will break my heart!"
Copyright, 2012, Jane Okasaki, all rights reserved
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